End of an Era

[Editor's note: We have suspended our three decade long run of independent (muckraking) journalism and analysis and will let you know where we go from here. The 2024 lawsuit against founder/editor Dahn Shaulis (Chip Paucek and Pro Athlete Community v Dahn Shaulis) is pending. While the legal bill is enormous, we expect to win. In the meantime, please support independent voices like Richard Wolff, Roger Sollenberger, Julie K. Brown, and Troy Barile.  #veritas]

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#accountability #adjunct #AI #AImeltdown #alienation #Ambow #anomie #anxiety #austerity #BDR #bot #boycott #BRICS #charliekirk #China #civilwar #climate #collegemania #collegemeltdown #crypto #CTE #democracy #divest #doomloop #edtech #edugrift #enshittification #epstein #epsteinfiles #FAFSA #fascism #genocide #greed #IDR #incel #India #jobless #kleptocracy #labor #medugrift #moralcapital #NCAA #neoliberal #nokings #nonviolence #Palantir #protest #PSLF #PXED #QOL #rehumanization #resistance #robocollege #robostudent #roboworker #Russia #solidarity #strikedebt #surveillance #temperance #TPUSA #transparency #Trump #value #veritas #virtue #WWIII

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On our last full day of operation, we extend our deepest gratitude to the many courageous voices who have contributed to the Higher Education Inquirer over the years. Through research, reporting, whistleblowing, analysis, and public service, you have exposed inequities, challenged powerful interests, and helped the public understand the realities of higher education.

Special thanks to:
Bryan Alexander (Future Trends Forum), J. J. Anselmi (author), Devarian Baldwin (Trinity College),  Lisa Bannon (Wall Street Journal), Joe Berry (Higher Education Labor United), Kate Bronfenbrenner (Cornell), Stephen Burd (New America), Ann Bowers (Debt Collective), James Michael Brodie (Black and Gold Project Foundation), Patrick Campbell (Vets Ed Brief), Richard Cannon (activist), Kirk Carapezza (WGBH), Kevin L. Clay (Rutgers), Randall Collins (UPenn), Marianne Dissard (activist), Cory Doctorow, William Domhoff (UC Santa Cruz), Ruxandra Dumitriu, Keil Dumsch, Garrett Fitzgerald (College Recon), Glen Ford (with the ancestors), Richard Fossey (Condemned to Debt), Erica Gallagher (2U Whistleblower), Cliff Gibson III (Gibson & Keith), Henry Giroux (McMaster University), Terri Givens (University of British Columbia), Luke Goldstein (The Lever),  Nathan Grawe (Carleton College), Michael Green (UNLV), Michael Hainline (Restore the GI Bill for Veterans), Debra Hale Shelton (Arkansas Times), Stephanie M. Hall (Protect Borrowers),  David Halperin (Republic Report), Bill Harrington (Croatan Institute), Phil Hill (On EdTech), Robert Jensen (UT Austin), Seth Kahn (WCUP), Hank Kalet (Rutgers), Ben Kaufman (Protect Borrowers), Robert Kelchen (University of Tennessee), Karen Kelsky (The Professor Is In), Neil Kraus (UWRF), LACCD Whistleblower, Michelle Lee (whistleblower), Wendy Lynne Lee (Bloomsburg University of PA), Emmanuel Legeard (whistleblower), Adam Looney (University of Utah), Alec MacGillis (ProPublica), Jon Marcus (Hechinger Report), Steven Mintz (University of Texas), John D. Murphy (Mission Forsaken), Annelise Orleck (Dartmouth), Margaret Kimberly (Black Agenda Report), Austin Longhorn (UT student loan debt whistleblower), Richard Pollock (journalist), Debbi Potts (whistleblower), Jack Metzger (Roosevelt University), Derek Newton (The Cheat Sheet), Jeff Pooley (Annenberg Center), Fahmi Quadir (Safkhet Capital), Chris Quintana (USA Today), Jennifer Reed (University of Akron), Kevin Richert (Idaho Education News), Gary Roth (Rutgers-Newark), Mark Salisbury (TuitionFit), Stephanie Saul (NY Times), Christopher Serbagi (Serbagi Law), Alex Shebanow  (Fail State), Bob Shireman (TCF), Bill Skimmyhorn (William & Mary), Peter Simi (Chapman University), Jeffrey Sonnenfeld (Yale), Gary Stocker (College Viability), Strelnikov (Wikipedia Sucks), Taylor Swaak (Chronicle of Higher Education), Theresa Sweet (Sweet v Cardona), Harry Targ (Purdue University), Moe Tkacik (American Prospect),  Kim Tran (activist), Mark Twain Jr. (business insider), Michael Vasquez (The Tributary), Marina Vujnovic (Monmouth), Richard Wolff (Economic Update), Todd Wolfson (Rutgers, AFT), Helena Worthen (Higher Ed Labor United), DW (South American Correspondent), Heidi Weber (Whistleblower Revolution), Michael Yates (Monthly Review), government officials who have supported transparency and accountability, and the countless other educators, researchers, whistleblowers, advocates, and public servants whose work strengthens our understanding of higher education.

Together, you form a resilient network of knowledge, courage, and public service, showing that collective insight can illuminate even the most entrenched systems. Your dedication has been, and continues to be, invaluable.

Dahn Shaulis and Glen McGhee

A Syllabus of Resistance

Higher education today demands that we strip away illusions. The university is no longer a sanctuary of truth but a contested battleground of austerity, automation, and alienation. Students, adjuncts, and staff are caught in a cycle of debt, precarity, and surveillance. To resist, we need not another glossy strategic plan but a syllabus — a curriculum of solidarity, transparency, and rehumanization.

Debt defines the student experience. Student loan balances now exceed $1.77 trillion, and repayment programs like PSLF and income-driven repayment offer only partial relief. In 2024, as federal student loan payments resumed after a pandemic pause, millions of borrowers simply refused to pay, transforming individual debt into collective action. The Debt Collective has organized strikes and campaigns to cancel student debt, reframing borrowing as a political issue rather than a private burden. This movement challenges whether the entire financing model of higher education can survive.

Faculty labor is equally precarious. More than seventy percent of instructors are contingent, often earning poverty wages without benefits. At Harrisburg Area Community College, over 200 faculty went on strike in November 2025 after years of stalled negotiations, exemplifying a growing national labor movement against stagnant pay and weakened job security. Adjunct faculty unions at Rutgers and elsewhere continue to push back against layoffs and austerity measures. The crisis of contingent labor has moved from quiet exploitation to open confrontation.

Climate crisis compounds the meltdown. Universities expand globally in a frenzy of collegemania, while ignoring ecological collapse. Student activists demand divestment from fossil fuels, but boards often resist. At Princeton, campaigners uncovered that the university owns a controlling stake in PetroTiger, a fossil fuel company, profiting directly from extraction. Edge Hill University in the UK recently committed to divest from both fossil fuels and border security companies after sustained student pressure. The University of Illinois, despite pledging to divest years ago, still faces protests demanding action. These campaigns show that climate justice is inseparable from educational justice.

Surveillance intensifies alienation. Universities increasingly deploy corporate partnerships and AI tools to monitor student dissent. At the University of Houston, administrators contracted with Dataminr to scrape students’ social media activity during Palestine solidarity protests. Amnesty International has warned that tools like Palantir and Babel Street pose surveillance threats to student activists. Truthout reports that campuses have become laboratories for military-grade surveillance technology, punishing dissent and eroding trust. Education becomes transactional and disciplinary, leaving students reporting higher levels of stress and disconnection.

Resistance must also be moral. University governance remains hierarchical and opaque, resembling corporate boards more than democratic institutions. Calls for transparency and veritas are drowned out by branding campaigns and political capture. A pedagogy of resistance must be rooted in temperance, nonviolence, and solidarity. Rehumanization is the antidote to robostudents, roboworkers, and robocolleges. It is the refusal to be bots, debtors, or disposable labor, and the insistence on reclaiming education as a public good.

Developing a Democratic Syllabus of Resistance

This syllabus is not a catalog of courses but a call to action. Debt strikes, adjunct unionization, climate divestment campaigns, and surveillance pushback are fragments of a larger curriculum of resistance. But this syllabus is incomplete without you. Readers are invited to join in creating it — to add new units, case studies, and strategies that reflect the lived realities of students, workers, and communities.

For inspiration, see the Higher Education Inquirer’s earlier piece on Methods of Student Nonviolent Resistance, which documents the long history of campus activism and the evolving tactics of protest, persuasion, and noncooperation. That archive reminds us that resistance is not only possible but essential.

The classroom is everywhere, and the time is now.

Where Public Health Meets National Security: From Susan Monarez to Stanford’s Defense Nexus

In July 2025, Dr. Susan Monarez was confirmed as the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) following a narrow 51–47 Senate vote along party lines. Monarez, who had been serving as acting director since January, brings over two decades of experience in federal health agencies, including leadership roles at the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), the Health Resources and Services Administration, and the Department of Homeland Security’s Advanced Research Projects Agency. Her career has also included positions in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the National Security Council, highlighting the growing intersection of health, technology, and national security.

Monarez’s confirmation occurs amid heightened scrutiny of CDC policies, vaccine skepticism, and substantial budgetary cuts proposed by the Trump administration. With a measles outbreak threatening public health and thousands of CDC positions eliminated or at risk, her leadership will be tested as she navigates the complex web of scientific integrity, political pressure, and resource constraints.

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Stanford University: Academia and Defense Converge

While Monarez represents a public health leadership deeply entangled with federal policy and security, Stanford University illustrates another side of the U.S. national security ecosystem: the academic and technological pipeline that fuels innovation for defense purposes. In Silicon Valley, Stanford has become a hub where academic research directly informs military and national security projects. Programs like Technology Transfer for Defense (TT4D) accelerate the movement of emerging technologies—ranging from AI and robotics to biotechnology and portable health diagnostics—into practical applications for the Department of Defense.

The Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation, established with support from the Office of Naval Research, further exemplifies Stanford’s role in bridging academia and defense. It integrates faculty expertise, student engagement, and Silicon Valley innovation to address pressing national security challenges. Through initiatives like the National Security Innovation Scholars program and Stanford DEFCON Student Network, students are empowered to contribute directly to actionable defense solutions.

Courses such as Hacking for Defense (H4D) demonstrate the university’s commitment to hands-on problem-solving, pairing students with military and intelligence agencies to address real-world national security issues using startup methodologies. Similarly, Stanford’s collaboration with the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School applies AI and machine learning expertise to advance aerospace testing and innovation. These programs reflect a growing trend among Stanford graduates pursuing careers in defense tech, joining companies such as Palantir, Anduril, and Shield AI.

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The Bio-Surveillance Nexus

As the Trump administration has spent its first few months in The White House constructing the physical and digital infrastructure required for a pre-crime, technocratic police state, little attention has been paid to the ways in which the institutions ostensibly dedicated to “public health” are helping build out this digital control grid. As Unlimited Hangout has been reporting for many years, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, a prominent subgroup of the surveillance state has emerged at the intersection of Big Tech, Big Pharma, and the military-industrial complex—one that is laying the groundwork to implement the final frontier of mass surveillance: the bio-surveillance apparatus.

Dr. Monarez’s role at the CDC and Stanford’s defense-oriented research ecosystem exemplify how public health, technology, and national security are increasingly entangled. From AI-driven diagnostics and wearable health monitors to military-backed biomedical research, the convergence of these sectors is creating a powerful, largely invisible infrastructure that extends far beyond conventional healthcare, embedding surveillance, control, and national security capabilities into everyday life.

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The Bio Surveillance State 

The appointment of Susan Monarez and the rise of Stanford’s defense-academic initiatives illustrate a broader trend: the blurring of boundaries between public health, defense, and technological surveillance. While these programs are publicly framed as innovation and security measures, they also raise critical questions about the expansion of digital and bio-surveillance, the militarization of scientific research, and the role of universities in national security projects.

As the United States navigates public health crises, technological competition, and national security imperatives, these overlapping networks of government, academia, and industry illuminate a critical reality: the future of American innovation, public safety, and civil liberties depends not just on policy or technology alone, but on the careful scrutiny of the bridges between them.

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Sources:

• Unlimited Hangout: Meet Trump’s CDC Director Susan Monarez

• Reuters: Senate Confirms Trump Nominee Susan Monarez

• ABC News: Senate Confirms CDC Director

• Stanford TT4D

• Gordian Knot Center

• Stanford Hacking for Defense

• SF Standard: Stanford Students Enter Military Tech

Selling Armageddon

In an age defined by manufactured crises, weaponized ignorance, and the commodification of fear, a disturbing coalition has emerged—one that profits not from progress, but from collapse. This coalition spans billionaires and bomb makers, Ivy League technocrats and evangelical foot soldiers, data miners and doomsday preachers. They aren't just predicting the end of the world. They're selling it.

The title Selling Armageddon captures a disturbing trend within American society—and particularly within the intersection of higher education, technology, and political ideology—where fear, fatalism, and anti-intellectualism have become not just cultural phenomena but profit centers.

The Profiteers of the Apocalypse

Billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel, a vocal critic of democracy and champion of techno-libertarianism, is emblematic of this ethos. Thiel's investments in surveillance, biotech, and defense contractors like Palantir are not just financial bets—they are ideological declarations. He has publicly said that he no longer believes freedom and democracy are compatible. Instead, Thiel supports strongmen, deregulated markets, and technological sovereignty for elites.

Thiel has also funneled money into right-wing institutions and figures that sow distrust in public institutions, especially higher education. Simultaneously, he and other members of the "techno-elite" invest in private learning incubators, surveillance infrastructure, and seasteading projects that imagine life after democracy—or after the planet.

These billionaires are preparing for Armageddon not by preventing it, but by monetizing it: funding bunkers in New Zealand, buying private islands, or investing in orbital real estate. As The Guardian once asked, “What happens when the people who make our futures no longer believe in the future?”

Enter Elon Musk, who brings to the Armageddon marketplace a particularly seductive brand of techno-messianism. Musk has built an empire not just on electric cars and space rockets, but on a narrative that humanity is doomed unless it follows his vision: Mars colonization, AI supremacy, and deregulated everything. His companies depend on government contracts, foreign labor, non-unionized workplaces, and public subsidies—all while he rails against the very institutions that enabled his rise.

Musk’s appeal lies in his ability to market collapse as innovation. Colonizing Mars is framed not as escapism for the rich, but as salvation for the species. Neuralink’s experiments on animals and humans are marketed as “progress.” Buying and gutting Twitter—now X—is portrayed as “free speech absolutism,” even as it becomes a haven for far-right propaganda and anti-intellectual conspiracy theories. Musk does not offer solutions for Earth. He sells a lifeboat for elites—and a live stream of the ship sinking for the rest.

The War on Higher Education: Enter Charlie Kirk

Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, is one of the most visible faces of the new anti-intellectual populism. Kirk, who has no college degree himself, built a political empire by demonizing higher education and promoting a gospel of grievance. Funded in part by the same billionaire class that bankrolls tech libertarians like Thiel and lionizes Elon Musk, Kirk has launched aggressive campaigns to surveil, blacklist, and harass professors and students who challenge conservative orthodoxy.

His Turning Point “Professor Watchlist” is not just an attack on individuals—it is an assault on the very notion of critical inquiry. In Kirk’s universe, universities are not flawed institutions to be reformed but radical breeding grounds to be destroyed. He promotes a worldview in which faith is pure, facts are suspect, and feelings of persecution are monetized.

While Kirk claims to be fighting “Marxism” and “wokeness,” what he is actually selling is obedience—particularly to corporate power, Christian nationalism, and militarized borders. His audience is taught that the future is a war, and they must choose sides: us vs. them, believers vs. traitors, patriots vs. professors.

Naomi Klein and the Shock Doctrine of Now

Naomi Klein’s work, especially The Shock Doctrine, offers a crucial lens for understanding how crises—real or manufactured—are used to erode public institutions and consolidate wealth. The COVID-19 pandemic, mass shootings, climate catastrophes, and political chaos have each served as moments of opportunity for privatizers, war profiteers, and ideological extremists.

In her more recent writings, Klein explores how conspiracy culture and fascist-adjacent movements have merged with wellness grifts and anti-science ideologies to create a new reactionary consumer base. Higher education has been both target and tool in this ecosystem—either accused of being too “woke,” or silently complicit in the march toward corporate authoritarianism.

Musk, like Thiel and Kirk, has leveraged this blend of libertarianism and grievance politics—tapping into populist rage while making his wealth on the back of public resources. Together, they represent a new ruling class that doesn’t just tolerate ignorance—they capitalize on it.

“Freedom Cities”: Privatized Utopia, Public Disaster

A key component of the Armageddon economy is the “Freedom City” project—a concept championed by Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and now embraced by Trump Republicans. On the surface, these cities promise deregulation, innovation, and technological advancement. But beneath the buzzwords is a vision of society in which public governance is replaced by corporate fiefdoms.

In Freedom Cities, there are no public universities—only credential mills optimized for employer branding. There are no town halls—only shareholder meetings. Laws are written by venture capitalists, not legislatures. These cities are not democratic experiments—they are controlled environments designed to ensure elite survival and labor discipline. Education is not about knowledge; it’s about code bootcamps, ideological training, and loyalty to corporate overlords.

Some Freedom City backers go so far as to frame these cities as escapes from the “decay” of American democracy. In this vision, the United States itself becomes disposable—its lands and labor extracted, its public institutions hollowed out, its higher education system replaced with behavioral conditioning and biometric surveillance.

Freedom Cities are the spatial manifestation of fatalistic capitalism—a place to survive the collapse that capitalism itself caused.

The Israel Factor

Nowhere is this more visible than in the militarization of university discourse around Israel and Palestine. Pro-Israel lobbying groups, sometimes in collaboration with groups like Turning Point USA and tech influencers on X, have used massive funding and public pressure to silence academic dissent, criminalize protest, and reshape curricula. Many elite universities have openly collaborated with defense contractors, some of whom profit from technologies tested on Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

This is not merely about Israel—it is about the normalization of permanent war as a condition of life. It is about desensitizing the public to state violence, turning morality into a partisan debate, and monetizing surveillance and repression. These policies, developed in the name of “security,” are later imported back into the United States—on campuses, in classrooms, and across the border.

Selling the End of Knowledge

The university was once imagined as a refuge from the chaos of the world—a place to build better futures. But in this dystopian moment, education is being stripped for parts. Faculty are adjunctified and silenced. Student debt is an albatross. Basic humanities departments are being gutted, while programs in cybersecurity, defense studies, and corporate law are growing.

We are educating people to manage collapse, not prevent it.

Instead of cultivating critical thinkers, institutions churn out bureaucrats for empire and engineers for oligarchs. The architects of Armageddon do not fear higher education—they co-opt it, fund it, rebrand it, and turn it against its original purpose.

Preventing Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

To resist the forces selling Armageddon, we must reclaim higher education as a public good—one grounded in ethics, truth-seeking, and planetary survival. We must refuse the logic of fatalism and reject the grifters who profit from despair. And we must name the forces—Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Charlie Kirk, the boosters of Freedom Cities, defense contractors, and neoliberal university presidents—that see crisis not as a call for solidarity, but as a sales pitch.

Because if we don’t, the end of the world won’t come with fire or flood.
It will come with a branded dome, a loyalty app, biometric gates—and a tuition bill.

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The Higher Education Inquirer is committed to investigative journalism that challenges elite narratives and exposes structural injustices in academia and beyond.

Cybersecurity Threats, Fascism, and Higher Education

American higher education stands at a dangerous crossroads—caught between the encroachment of authoritarian surveillance at home and the very real cybersecurity threats from adversarial states abroad. On one side, we see the growth of data collection and domestic monitoring that risks silencing dissent and undermining academic freedom. On the other, sophisticated cyberattacks from nation-states like Russia, China, Iran, Israel, and North Korea present significant threats to intellectual property, national security, and the safety of digital infrastructure on campus.

This double-edged sword raises urgent questions about the role of higher education in a time of rising fascism, geopolitical instability, and digital vulnerability.

In recent years, colleges and universities have become sites of intensified digital monitoring. Student protesters, faculty activists, and visiting scholars find themselves increasingly under surveillance by both state agencies and private contractors. Under the guise of “safety” and “cybersecurity,” dissident voices—especially those speaking out on issues like Palestine, racial justice, climate collapse, and labor rights—are monitored, flagged, and at times disciplined.

Campus security partnerships with local police and federal agencies like the FBI, DHS, and ICE have created a new surveillance architecture that chills free speech and suppresses organizing. Social media is mined. Emails are monitored. Student groups that once flourished in the open now meet with the paranoia of being watched or labeled as threats. This chilling effect is especially acute for international students and scholars from the Global South, who face disproportionate scrutiny, travel restrictions, and visa denials. These policies don’t just protect against threats—they enforce a top-down political orthodoxy. In some cases, administrators have even turned over data to law enforcement in response to political pressure, lawsuits, or fear of reputational harm. The dream of the university as a bastion of free inquiry is fading in the fog of surveillance capitalism and political fear.

Particularly concerning is the growing role of powerful tech firms like Palantir Technologies in higher education's security infrastructure. Originally developed with backing from the CIA’s venture capital arm, In-Q-Tel, Palantir’s software is designed for mass data aggregation, predictive policing, and counterinsurgency-style surveillance. While marketed as tools for campus safety and data management, Palantir’s platforms can also be used to monitor student behavior, track political activism, and identify so-called “threats” that align more with ideological dissent than legitimate security concerns. The company has existing contracts with numerous universities and research institutions, embedding itself in the heart of higher ed’s decision-making and information systems with little public accountability.

At the same time, the threat from foreign actors is not imaginary. Russian disinformation campaigns have targeted U.S. universities, attempting to sow discord through social media and exploit political divisions on campus. Iranian state-sponsored hackers have stolen research from American institutions, targeting fields like nuclear science, engineering, and public health. Chinese entities have been accused of both cyberespionage and aggressive recruitment of U.S.-trained researchers through programs like the Thousand Talents Plan, sparking controversy and xenophobic backlash. While some fears have been overstated or politically weaponized, evidence shows that intellectual property theft and cyber intrusion are persistent issues.

Meanwhile, Israel’s cyber industry—including firms founded by former Israeli intelligence operatives—has sold spyware and surveillance tools to governments and corporations worldwide. NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware, for instance, has reportedly been used to target academics, journalists, and activists. American campuses are not exempt from these tools’ reach—particularly when it comes to Palestine advocacy and international collaborations.

The paradox is clear: The same institutions that should be defending democratic ideals and global collaboration are being co-opted into both authoritarian domestic surveillance and militarized cyberdefense. There is an alarming convergence of corporate cybersecurity contractors, intelligence agencies, and university bureaucracies—often with little transparency or oversight. Federal funding tied to defense and homeland security has made some universities complicit in this surveillance regime. Others have turned to private cybersecurity vendors like Palantir, which quietly build intrusive systems that blur the lines between threat detection and political policing. In this environment, real cybersecurity is essential—but it must not become a tool for repression.

What is needed is a dual approach that protects against foreign and criminal cyberthreats without succumbing to the authoritarian logic of mass surveillance. Universities must protect academic freedom by enforcing strict policies against political monitoring and reaffirming the rights of students and faculty to speak, organize, and dissent. They must ensure transparency and oversight over cybersecurity operations and external partnerships, particularly those involving military and intelligence-linked firms. They must support digital security for activists and marginalized groups, not just administrative systems. And they must strengthen internal cyberdefenses through open-source tools, decentralized networks, and ethical cybersecurity education—not just corporate solutions that prioritize control over community.

We cannot allow the logic of the Cold War to be reborn in the form of digital McCarthyism. Higher education must be a firewall against fascism—not a pipeline for it. As we confront 21st-century cyberconflicts and political extremism, universities must ask themselves: Are we defending truth and inquiry—or enabling the very systems that undermine them? The answer will shape the future of higher education—and democracy itself.

Tech Titans, Ideologues, and the Future of American Higher Education

American higher education is under pressure from within and without—squeezed by financial strain, declining enrollment, political hostility, and technological disruption. But the greatest challenge may be coming from a group of powerful outsiders—figures with deep influence in politics, technology, and media—who are actively reshaping how education is perceived, delivered, and valued. Among them: Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Sam Altman, Alex Karp, and Charlie Kirk. Each brings a different ideology and strategy, but their combined influence represents an existential threat to traditional colleges and universities.

Donald Trump’s second rise to power has included a full-spectrum attack on elite and public institutions of higher learning. From threats to strip funding from schools that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion, to freezing billions in research grants at elite institutions like Harvard, Trump has positioned universities as enemies in a broader cultural and political war. His proposed education policy emphasizes trade schools and short-term credentials over liberal arts and research, while his administration has floated revoking accreditation from institutions that resist his agenda. Rather than investing in public education, the Trump agenda calls for punishment, privatization, and obedience. And for institutions that don’t comply, there are growing threats of taxation, defunding, and public humiliation.

Elon Musk is undermining higher education in a different way. Musk has openly mocked the need for college degrees, suggesting that “you can learn anything online for free.” While that’s partly rhetoric, it’s also a blueprint for disruption. His experimental school Astra Nova already offers a glimpse into a post-institutional future—one that favors creative, independent thinking over traditional credentialing. Now, with plans to launch the Texas Institute of Technology & Science, Musk is betting that elite training can happen outside the bounds of accreditation and federal oversight. Musk’s future is technocratic and libertarian, with universities seen as bloated, slow-moving, and culturally out of touch.

Peter Thiel’s vision is even more radical. Thiel has compared American higher education to the Catholic Church before the Reformation—rich, corrupt, and intellectually bankrupt. His Thiel Fellowship pays young people to skip college entirely, offering $100,000 to start companies instead of accumulating debt. He argues that universities reward conformity and delay adulthood. For Thiel, colleges don’t just fail to prepare students—they actively mislead them. His endgame is a decentralized, market-driven system in which talent rises through initiative and capital, not credentials.

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, presents yet another threat—this time from artificial intelligence. Altman doesn’t reject learning, but he does question the institutions that monopolize it. With tools like ChatGPT and future AI tutors, Altman envisions personalized, real-time learning for everyone, everywhere. In this model, universities risk becoming obsolete—not because they are wrong, but because they are too slow and too expensive. Altman has also pushed universities to take a more active role in shaping AI policy; if they don’t, the tech industry will do it for them. The message is clear: adapt or be replaced.

Alex Karp, CEO of Palantir, is building a new kind of corporate university. Through programs like the Palantir Meritocracy Fellowship and “Semester at Palantir,” Karp is recruiting students directly out of elite schools—particularly those disillusioned by what he sees as anti-Israel sentiment or campus censorship. These programs offer practical, high-paid experience that bypasses traditional academic pathways. Karp’s vision doesn’t require the elimination of universities—it just renders them unnecessary for the most competitive jobs in tech and intelligence. His model suggests a future in which corporations, not universities, decide who is qualified.

Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, has weaponized the culture war to delegitimize higher education entirely. Kirk’s brand of activism portrays universities as corrupt, anti-American indoctrination centers. Through social media campaigns, donor networks, and student chapters, he has built an infrastructure of resistance against academic institutions. His goal isn’t reform—it’s replacement. Through efforts like the Freedom College Alliance, Kirk is helping to build a parallel educational system rooted in conservative Christian values, classical curricula, and ideological purity. In Kirk’s world, higher education isn’t broken—it’s the enemy.

Together, these six men are shaping a new, fragmented future for American education. Some want to burn it down. Some want to replace it. Some want to privatize it or profit from its collapse. What they share is a conviction that traditional universities no longer serve their intended purpose—and that a new model, rooted in tech, politics, or religion, must take its place.

This isn’t a theoretical debate. Universities are already responding—cutting liberal arts programs, racing to implement AI tools, rebranding themselves as career accelerators, and seeking favor with donors who increasingly resemble these disruptive outsiders. For those who resist, the future may include not just funding cuts, but political investigations, lawsuits, and public smear campaigns.

Higher education faces a stark choice. It can double down on its public mission—defending critical thinking, civic engagement, and social mobility—or it can retreat into elite credentialing and survival mode. What it cannot do is ignore the forces gathering at its gates. These forces are rich, powerful, ideologically driven—and they are not waiting for permission to remake the system.

Socrates in Space: University of Austin as a Model of America's Ivory Tower Future

The University of Austin's inaugural class begins this September. While its founding has had some media attention, critical and uncritical, little is known about the school, other than its founders and some of the curriculum--and more recently about the school's constitution and austere, free market business model. We expect the public to receive information akin to propaganda from the new university while investigative reporters attempt to find what's really developing.  

Tomorrowland's Elite Model

The US has had three major growth periods in elite higher education with the founding of Christian-based Ivy League schools in the 17th and 18th centuries, the rise of more private colleges in the 19th century, and the evolution of state flagship universities in the 20th century, which altered their missions from teaching to focus more on research and medicine.

According to President Pano Kanelos, the University of Austin (UATX) is modeled after elite schools founded by the money of 19th century capitalists: Johns Hopkins University, the University of Chicago (John D. Rockefeller), and Stanford University. In its original plan, the school is seeking accreditation but not public funding. And without federal funding, the school is not required to be transparent on a number of issues, including finances, student demographics, and crime statistics. A limited amount of information will be available on the institution's IRS 990 forms.

UATX's leaders see the school as a model for elite education in the 21st century and beyond: socializing future elites in neo-classical western thought and the search of the truth as they know it: through the lens of US venture capitalists and US private equity. The school's donors include Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale who created the start up funds for UATX, real estate investor Harlan Crow, and global real estate investor Scott Malkin.  

Despite its calling for intellectual diversity, the University of Austin will serve as a safe space for conservative and libertarian youth, especially young men: blind to race, class, and gender, and friendly to those who may feel intimidated by progressive folks and the recent pro-Palestinian movement on elite campuses. UATX will be attuned to the needs of private capital and the promotion of their ventures and the ventures of their allies: from bitcoin, to artificial intelligence, to private space exploration. 

Command and Control

At the University of Austin, there will be no faculty senate and no faculty tenure. The initial faculty roster is composed of 19 men and 4 women--and appears to be disproportionately white. Staff and support roles will be done largely by artificial intelligence and workers in Guatemala.   

 

Artificial Intelligence will be used to reduce labor costs at the University of Austin. 

Prospective students will selected by the faculty and on merit, which includes standardized test scores. Those who matriculate will learn classical and neoclassical western philosophy (like Socrates and the Federalist Papers) and English Literature in combination with science and engineering, where all students will take the same coursework for the first two years, then become research fellows in the remaining two years, with each student involved in practically solving "a major political, social or economic problem...by the time they graduate."

Students will share apartments off campus where they will do their own cooking. There will be no amenities on campus or campus police, but local gyms and local police will be in the area. Aside from the Austin Union, the student body is expected to start their own clubs and activities. The physical library is a small room with a few bookshelves, and the librarian has additional duties. Civil debate is encouraged, but campus protests will be limited--it is said, to protect the rights of all students. 

The founding 2024 class is expected to enroll 100 students, growing to 200 students in 2025 and 1,000 students in 2028, reaching a peak of 4,000, and with a new campus. After the founding class, which will receive free tuition for four years, tuition is expected to be about $32,500 per year, with a number of students receiving scholarships.

Related links:

The Constitution of Academic Liberty (Niall Ferguson, National Affairs)

Can the New University of Austin Revive the Culture of Inquiry in Higher Education? (Joanne Jacobs, Education Next)

An American Education: Notes from UATX (Noah Rawlings, The New Inquiry)

Austin’s Anti-Woke University Is Living in Dreamland (Morgan O'Hanlon)

The Future of Publicly-Funded University Hospitals (Dahn Shaulis and Glen McGhee)

A People's History of Higher Education in the US?

Dangerous Spaces: Sexual Assault and Other Forms of Violence On and Off Campus